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Greece HSPA (prepaid and postpaid offers)
I thought I should open this thread for greek HSPA mobile broadband offers, prepaid and postpaid.
I'm copying my post from the Greece GPRS thread (the GPRS title isn't that correct). I should just mention the the Wind plus non-stop "trick" that allows you to tether your laptop to your phone and get GSRS, 3G or HSPA access (depending on your phone) is thoroughly described in the Greece GPRS forum. Here are the "real" HSPA mobile broadband offers, and I say "real" because Wind plus non-stop is supposed to give you access for mobile internet through your phone but can also be used with your laptop as easily, it just has a 1MB limitation per downloaded file, i.e. you can't download pdf files, videos or streaming videos using Wind plus non-stop. The offers described here are mobile broadband ones and some of them can be used for short visits in Greece as described below (either WIND prepaid non-stop ADSM or an unlimited time postpaid connection for the time you will be staying in Greece, if you're staying for more than a week)... |
Here's the copy-paste of my post on the "Greece GPRS" thread:
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So it seems that there is not a real prepaid offer for internet access in Greece, except the Wind ones. I'll go there for a month or two, and I will need continuous access to the internet, so the Wind ADSM offer is not really an option (120 euros a month!). What do you think is my best option, then? thank you very much.
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Definitely Wind Plus non-stop which is described thouroughly in the "Greece GPRS" thread!
http://www.prepaidgsm.net/forum/greece-gprs-t2183.html You will find all the information you need to activate and use this offer on that thread! This offer gives you really unlimited access to the internet with the only limitation of 1MB per downloaded file! I.e. you can't watch streaming files or download files more than 1MB in size! But it costs only 3,49 Euro per month! For larger files you can go for access through the gint.wind.com.gr profile with per KB charging or with the 1GB per day Wind ADSM packages which are quite expensive though... |
Yes, you are right. The 1 Mb limit is annoying, but the cost is unbeatable. Let's hope that Wind will not close this opportunity. Thank you very much. Your posts are very helpful for me and I have bookmarked them.
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@ gmmour: do you know if in Athens i can find some wifi zone (for payment)?
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Yes, there are WiFi zones for free at Syntagma square (city centre) and Thisseion square (outside the metro station and up the pedestrian way towards the Acropolis), you'll see a lot of youngsters with laptops hanging around these places. Free WiFi zones are also available at the University of Athens buildings in the city centre and all Athens universities' campuses around the city.
At Starbucks coffee-shops there are Forthnet Wifi hotspots, you can buy a "Forthnet WiFi NetKey" card from the cashier but it's quite expensive. So you can buy a plain "Forthnet NetKey" prepaid card from any kiosk (periptero) and this will give you more time for WiFi with the same money than the "WiFi Card" at Forthnet hotspots. Go to the www.forthnet.gr website and find out the map with available hotspots around Greece. Also at Flocafé coffee-shops around Athens there are free WiFi hotspots and in general you might be lucky enough to find free private hotspots from offices or houses anywhere in the center of Athens. Also there are hotspots at the airport and in almost all hotels in the city, but these are not free! |
well, good. A last question :D Maybe I'll @ AEK's stadium, do you know if they have a wifi access for journalists? Their press office is not so... ready to answer :P
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AEK plays at the Olympic Stadium right?
I don't think there is anything there unless they have some kind of access for the staff and the journalists but there is no public hotspot in the Athens Olympic Complex. Nearby though at the Neratziotissa metro/suburban rail station there is "The Mall Athens", a big shopping centre, which has public hotspots... Neratziotissa is the northern station serving the Olympic complex and it is on walking distance from the Complex, so you might be able to pick up some WiFi from the shopping mall... (There is a flocafe at the mall so you might pick up a flocafe free hotspot or a FNAC hotspot among others...) |
voip via hdpsa modem on Wind
Can anyone advise if it is possible to place voip calls if connected through Wind Greece non-stop tariff €49 euro deal (Something lke 35Gb max per month) I am proposing a connection via HDSPA modem thingy and the lap-top
Something tells me that it will not work as the two carriers are then in competition for voice traffic? Any wisdom gratefully received. |
wherever i look, i cannot find the often mentioned ''Wind plus non-stop
offer'' anywhere on their webpage, at least not on the english pages. is there a secret backdoor? greetings - heinz - |
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but the link I bookmarked http://www.windplus.gr/default.asp?siteid=2&langID=2 is dead. It's mentioned in this Greek page: http://www.windplus.gr/help.aspx |
... which might indicate it is not available to foreign visitors anymore. by mistake, or on purpose?
greetings - heinz |
The service is still available...
I just googled the term ("plus non-stop" site:wind.com.gr) and here it is: http://www.wind.com.gr/pages.fds?langid=2&pageid=1512 You can also go to the site and follow the drop down menus as follows: "For individuals->Prepaid->Wind F2G->Wind plus non-stop service" Enjoy! |
>> Enjoy!
i sure will, that is good news. why the other english pages have vanished nobody will probably ever find out. could it be they are checking IPs? ''For individuals->Prepaid->Wind F2G->Wind plus non-stop service'' - that part for example is not there. greetings - heinz - PS: oh no, it is there, but only if you hangle yourself through from the top left menus ... not the other ones down below left (also INDV -> PPD -> F2G) |
Can someone tell me prices for other services on wind plus non-stop (voice calls, sms to foreign networks ...) ?
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Wind mobile telephony > For individuals > Prepaid > Wind F2G > Pricelist I expect you can activate other non-stop services as well as plus - but I don't know. |
Please note that Wind F2G has a "price commitment" which means that besides their own tariff plans you can also activate F2G with any tariff plan offered by competing companies on the Greek market. Thus, on the price list you will see F2G prices (which Wind supports are the best) as well as F2G 1-F2G 8 which match competing offers (like Cosmote What's up, Cosmote CosmoKARTA, Vodafone CU, Vodafone a la Carte, Q card, Frog, Carrefour mobile etc...)
You can change your tariff plan every 30 days free of charge. Wind plus non-stop is an add-on service that can be activated on all Wind lines, both prepaid (F2G) and postpaid. |
Hello gmmour!!
I would like to go to greece for 2 weeks at the end of August. I am very happy I found this forum and your great posts! Last time I spend 300 Euros to Vodafone (websessions) which was expensive but though very useful for me. Now I would like to buy a Wind F2G prepaid card and use the 7-day offer two times, to have no hassle with the 1MB rule or anything else. I use a Merlin 3G/UMTS Card for my Notebook (because I have an antenna fitting into the card and the transmission is very well like this) and therefor I need to configure the APN correctly. So, what is the right APN string to configure the UMTS Card for using the WIND 7-day option? Thank you very much again, finejam PS: Because COSMOTE seems to have the best 3G/UMTS network in Greece and I like to travel around, I would like to have a Backup wirh Cosmote. Do they also have an PREPAID Offer at reasonabel costs???? |
The APN for the ADSM offers is gint.b-online.gr (WIND Internet when you download it from their website)...
Cosmote only offers the "Cosmote MY View pass" which costs 4 Euro/month and offers unlimited access to their "My View" WAP portal as well as 40 MB of Web traffic... Their normal price is 0,0119 Euro/kB though... Why don't you consider signing up for one of their postpaid data offers (Cosmote, Vodafone or Wind)? You'll just pay the first (or maybe second month) but still it might be cheaper for you... There is no minimum contract duration so you can cancel anytime you want... |
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I find the Cosmote data offers difficult to understand. "Internet on the Go" for example - is that an addon to a postpost? |
Well, the cosmote website is a mess... I don't know who designed it and what was the logic behind it but it's a mess.
That's their pricelist in English, although it has no refference to "my view"... Total mess: http://www.cosmote.gr/cosmote/portle...itle=Pricelist The same pricelist in Greek has the my view pricelist: http://www.cosmote.gr/cosmote/portle...B3%CE%BF%CF%82 You can activate the My view portal by sending an sms with the word "WAP" to 1333 and you'll receive the settings. Then you can activate the monthly pass (4 Euro/40 MB web surfing) through the main site of "Cosmote My view" or at a Cosmote shop. If you activate the monthly pass at a Cosmote shop for the first time you get a 50% discount (i.e. 2 Euro for the first month)... Unfortunately the My view mini-site on www.cosmote.gr is not available in English... It is an expensive alternative though and you should consider signing up for a postpaid offer which you will cancel when you leave Greece... You can give them any address you want as soon as you provide them with a valid credit card for account payment... They don't ask a lot of paperwork if you provide them with a credit card... Unfortunately this is true for Wind and Vodafone at least, but Cosmote shops might still ask for a proof of address in Greece even though you provide them with a valid credit card... Give it a try... A Wind or Vodafone shop will acitvate your postpaid contract without any paperwork, if you give them a credit card... I've done it many times... |
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I did expect there would bei minimun duration of contract! If not thats definitely the BEST for me! Also because my aunt is greek and lives there so adress is no problem... gmmour - Do you now how much time in advance I would have to male such a contract? I think I cannot get the sim for such a contract directly in a shop? Or can I singup online? What about cancelling? Could it be a mess? Thank you very much, finejam |
You just show up in one of their stores and ask for a data contract WITHOUT subsidy and WITHOUT a modem! If you do get a modem with the contract and cancel then you have to pay back the subsidy, so make it clear that you don't want any subsidy and make sure that your contract contains 0 (zero) Euro as the amount of subsidy you have to pay back in case you cancel!
If you make it absolutely clear to them that you don't want any subsidy (a lot of employees in greek mobile phone shops don't know how to fill in a contract with zero subsidy and you do have to insist some time), then you'll have your contract signed and your SIM activated in minutes... You don't have to do anything in advance! Providing them with a credit card for account payment will actually make the process a lot faster... 30 minutes maximum I think is the time you'll spend in the shop... Of course you have to have a 3G modem already to put the SIM card in... So, to sum up, a contract with no subsidy, has no minimum duration and you pay nothing to cancel (although cancelling the contract requires one month notice)! The contract is signed and the SIM is activated on the spot immediately... Hope this helped! Enjoy your time in Greece! |
Thank you very much again!!!
Do you know the APN for Cosmote? ...It is just this string I have to put in (like here in germany with xxxx=APN): "+cgdcont=1,"IP","xxxxxxxxxxxxx" How is such a contract usually canceled in Greece? I suppose not online, do I have to write a letter or a fax or go to a shop? greetings, finejam |
@gmmour: Thanks very much. This is all very helpful.
Dave |
You can fax them your request or visit a store let them make a copy of your ID and fill in a form...
So if you are abroad, a fax would be the only solution. You have to attach a copy of your ID (or passport) on the fax for the cancelation (or any request in general) to be accepted by fax. It is better to use the same piece of ID you used when you signed up for the contract. Then call them after one day to ask them if your request has been processed and what day the cancelation has been scheduled for. They might also try to call you back from the cancelation/retention department and make an offer to convince you not to cancel. Cosmote's APN for internet (not WAP), i.e. for data plans is just "internet"... Their "My View" APN which you have to use if you buy the 4 Euro pass with the 40 MB's would be "wap". |
WARNING WARNING!!!
From October 20th, 2008 Wind plus non-stop will stop offering unlimited data! It will offer unlimited browsing in the Wind plus portal and 40 MB for other sites... You will pay a whole 0,0119 Euro/kilobyte if you exceed the 40 MB limit! This means that after October 20th, 2008 Wind Plus non-stop will no longer be of any interest!!!!!!! STOP using it after October 20th, 2008 or you'll pay almost 12500 Euro per GB!!! The new wind plus non-stop is now the same as the Cosmote GR my view monthly pass (40MB/month)... |
Thanks for the warning. I'll need something to replace it when I sail in Greece next year.
Yesterday I was in Kioni, on Ithiki. It is the first place I've been with no Wind signal - only Cosmote. I needed a weather forecast. So I subscribed - successfully - to Wind Italy 'Roaming no limit'. But I couldn't get a GPRS connection through Cosmote to Wind IT; not sure why - I think it timed out. Anybody got this to work? So I tried to use my Cosmokarte - which I exppected to cost 11EUR/Mb. But I got an error 'Subscribe to GPRS First'. Do I need to go to a Cosmote shop to do that? In the end I climbed up a small mountain to get a Wind signal :-) |
Wind now offers a new "ADSM add-on" for postpaid customers only, it costs 8 Euro/month and gives 120 MB of real internet (no proxy) traffic through the gint APN (not gwap.b-online.gr used for Wind plus). They also offer an add-on for 17 Euro / month with 300 MB of traffic... Extra MB cost 0,70 Euro each!
The only thing available for prepaid customers now (apart from the new wind plus non-stop with 40 MB) is the ADSM non-stop add on the offers 1 or 7 days of "unlimited" (1 GB/day) traffic but it's very expensive (I have mentioned the prices on a previous post)... Cosmote offers a Cosmote My view WAP pass that also offers unlimited Cosmote portal and 40 MB internet traffic for 4 Euro / month... They also offer an add-on for postpaid customers with 15 Euro/month, 250MB included and 0,10Euro/MB overage... Vodafone also has two surf&mail packages 3.5Euro for 30 MB and 10 Euro for 150 MB a month... Here's the link http://www.vodafone.gr/portal/client...uest_locale=en Unfortunately, this too, is available only as an add-on to postpaid customers... Vodafone GR i-phone postpaid programs (including voice, SMS and 500MB to 1GB of data each month, are a good deal for postpaid but still only available to iPhone users... |
Argh, that's annoying. I've been making heavy use of Wind Plus Non-Stop.
What's the easiest/cheapest postpaid contract to get those addons? I saw mention of a no-monthly-fee contract in the 'Greece GPRS' thread. If you have a contract and buy an addon, is it for every month of the contract or just for the next month? Or can you just cancel it after a month? Do networks have English-speaking operators I can call to make these changes, or is it necessary to go to a shop? Are there any other roaming/etc options available? I see the Wind Italy is EUR3/MB when roaming... still not that cheap. |
Or I don't suppose you can buy a new COSMOTE/WIND 40MB addon in less than a month? So you pay EUR3.49, get 40MB of non-portal data, and then pay 3.49 again for another 40MB. That would be EUR0.1/MB - a bit better. Or is it restricted so you're only allowed one lot of 40MB per month?
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All operators are bilingual. Wind 1 is a no-monthly-fee contract (the genuine one), DON'T go for Wind Flexy 0 or Cosmote and Vodafone no-fee contracts, they actually have a 12 month contract period, whilst Wind 1 is the only program that has no fee and no contract period (remnant of the old Q1 program of Q-telecom, taken over by Wind)!
You can get the ADSM add-ons on contracts as mentioned on this site: http://www.wind.com.gr/pages.fds?langid=2&pageid=1213 But, it says the add-on is available on ALL consumer tariff plans but in the parentheses Wind 1 is NOT mentioned... Look for yourself or call them +306935601260, all operators are english speaking... If you go for the WAP add-ons, all operators now offer them with 40 MB off-portal (i.e. Web browsing)... And you can activate them on Wind, Cosmote and Vodafone prepaids... Wind also offers that PAYG ADSM packs which cost 10 Euro for 1GB for 1 day and 30 Euro for 1GB/day for 7 days... Pretty expensive. But you can surf 1GB per day for let's say two weeks in Greece with 60 Euro... You can also sign up for a mobile broadband contract, if you don't get a subsidy (i.e. a USB HSPA modem) with it, you can cancel whenever you want, so it will be the most inexpensive solution if you plan to stay for a month, more or less... They say you can't cancel with them before 2 months, but you actually can and if they refuse to do so you can apply for (totally free) number portability to a prepaid and they have to cancel your contract as soon as the portability is activated (nowadays it's 2 weeks according to greek regulations)... Thus, get a mobile broadband contract from any company and cancel it when you leave, either by applying to them or if they refuse to cancel before a 2 month minimum duration (which is not legal actually but they do it), just apply for a free number portability to another operator's prepaid and your contract is automatically cancelled even though the 2 month minimum contract duration hasn't passed... If you have a credit with them (because your first account payment will include 2 installements) then you can sort it out to get your money back on the credit card (provided you have signed up to pay by credit card)... Hope it was not confusing.... Feel free to ask anything. Happy New Year! |
Thanks, I'll give one of those a try (not decided which yet)
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I've got WIND working. I also have a COSMOTE SIM - can you tell me how to activate the 40MB package on COSMOTE - I can't find anything about it on the website. COSMOTE happens to have far better signal where I am in Athens (100% in both 2G and 3G, WIND and Q only have 2G 40-50%)
Also, now WIND and COSMOTE have imposed limits to WAP data, is there any way to see how much data you have remaining? |
I've managed to get the COSMOTE WAP package working, so here are some details. COSMOTE's WAP access is called My View, and the EUR4 for 40MB deal is called My View'n'Web.
When you want to go started, text 'WAP' to 1333. This activates WAP access - the first time you use it you get 15 days free access for up to 40MB of internet sites. They send you a configuration SMS which needs a PIN - this comes in the preceding text (my PIN was just the number 1). The settings are: APN: wap Proxy IP: 10.10.10.10 Proxy port: 8080 For some reason I couldn't make it work on 3G even though my phone (Nokia N70) was showing 100% 3G signal - phone said 'packet data not available'. The same happened for the Internet APN (see below). If I force my phone to GSM (2G) only, it does work. The COSMOTE WAP homepage is http://wap.cosmotemyview.gr/ I haven't checked as I'm still on the introductory 15 day package, but I think the My View'n'Web monthly pass can be bought via this site from your phone. HTTP and HTTPS do work just as on the WIND proxy - I haven't checked to see whether there's a size limit or any mangling of content. SSH using PuTTY as I described in the Greece GPRS thread works also (changing the proxy address and port) I've only just started using it, but given the much better signal I've had with COSMOTE I think I might choose it in preference to WIND. COSMOTE also do a non-proxied real internet connection, whose APN is "3g-internet". I suspect this will be expensive. (Normal WAP data is charged at EUR0.0119/KB so EUR12.2/MB and I think internet data may be the same) |
I looked at Cosmote's and Wind's new WAP offers when I was in the Ionian in October. Both said that the Poseidon weather site was part of their portal - so maybe excluded from the 40Mb. Can you tell whether it is?
Poseidon I also talked to a guy in a Vodafone shop in Vathi on Kefalonia. I told him why we (sailors) needed data access on prepaid cards. He said that Voda might be doing 'something' on prepaid 'next year'. He was probably just being polite - or stringing me along - but it might be worth enquiring in a Voda shop while in Athens. Dave (in the UK - returning to Greece in April) |
I'm not sure how I'd check. I haven't found anything like a data meter on either COSMOTE or WIND where I can see how much data I've used to date. So the only way I'd be able to test it is use exactly 40MB internet data and then see if that sites was then charged. But given the punitive rate for non-included data (the rest of my EUR10 topup would go in about 500KB) I don't really want to risk going too close to the 40MB limit.
I'm not sure a salesman in a relative backwater would know the inside track on what Vodafone in Athens are planning, but it would be a useful advance. Really I'd like for Hutchison (Three networks in UK, Australia, Italy, Sweden etc) to buy COSMOTE or WIND and then expand Three Like Home (where you get identical tariffs at home and roaming in Three countries) - then Three UK or Ireland's generous Mobile Broadband tariffs would apply. Ah well... |
Sorry for the late responce, I had the chickenpox at age 24 and spent the holidays in bed...
Well, you don't get 3G because you have to ask them to "activate" 3G on your line, this means videocalling and 3G data... Just call their cc and ask for "3G to be activated on your line"... |
I hope you've recovered now... that's not a pleasant experience (my father had it at age 53).
Thanks for the tip. I haven't got around to doing it as 2G isn't too bad - on limited bandwidth connections it's actually quite useful in saving the kilobytes. Now the bad news. COSMOTE's My View'n'Web pass is strictly 40MB/month. It won't let me buy the monthly pass until after the 15 days trial period has elapsed even though I've used almost all the 40MB, so I'm guessing once you've used your 40MB you can't buy any more data until a month after you bought the pass. In addition, the monthly pass renews automatically so you have to remember to cancel it when you're done. I've just tried renewing my WIND Plus and the same happens - a text to reply saying I already have it, and no debit from my account. [ some days later ] But there's a silver lining to this cloud. I've now gone quite a way above the 40MB in my COSMOTE trial period, and my balance hasn't reduced. The traffic I've recorded is about 60MB, but I imagine I've done more like 80MB. So buying a COSMOTE SIM for EUR5 and just using the 15 day trial period might be a way forward for 'unlimited' internet (ie until they notice and block it). Unlike WIND, I don't think COSMOTE have a 1MB size limit nor an annoying mangling proxy. Even if they do limit this offer to 40MB, there's another way out. Just buy a pile of COSMOTE SIMs for EUR5 each. Activate the trial period, use for 15 days or until you exhaust the 40MB plus the EUR1 of credit (that'll get you about 100KB at the metered rates) at which point it should stop working. Throw away the SIM and use another one. That works out at EUR5 per 40.1MB, or about 12.5cents/MB. Unless they lock the trial offer to IMEI (which sounds unlikely) then you can get through as many SIMs as you like. I bought another SIM in the interests of research but haven't tried this because of the lack of limit above. I would advise not buying more that two or three SIMs at a time in case shops get suspicious, or run out of stock. But Germanos and OTE/COSMOTE shops are quite plentiful, so that shouldn't be a problem. |
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